We're celebrating the 20th anniversary of one of the great classic baseball card sets, 1988 Topps. We're going through all 792 cards one by one, posting bits about what makes the card awesome and cool stats about the player or team featured on the card. We're also posting the 1988 Topps Traded set!

Friday, September 5, 2008

#705 Juan Samuel

Why this card is awesome: Because it's another Phillie, and another crap photo from Topps. I mean, sure, a closeup of Juan Samuel is nice. But this guy was one of the star players for the then-lowly Philly franchise. Couldn't they give any one of their decent players a decent action-shot card?

Cool stat: In 1990, Samuel had a terrible year stealing bases, getting caught 20 times versus only 38 successful steals. That's one of the worst totals for a guy with 40 or fewer SB over the last 30 years. He shouldn't have been allowed to run. Sabermetric data clearly shows that stealing bases at about 75% success rate is neutral in terms of how much it helps your team score. A guy really needs to be at about 80% for it to be worthwhile (although this ignores the leverage of specific situations.) Anybody on that list above with at least 20 CS had a success rate below 67%. TO be fair, Samuel's 1984 ranks in the other direction. He had one of the lowest CS totals for a guy with at least 70 SB.

By the way, Harold Reynolds' career SB% was a lousy 64%. Even Samuel was at 73%. Rickey Henderson was 80% Lou Brock was 75%.

4 comments:

The SB% wothwhile threshold of 75% is an interesting statistic. I read a lot about it at the end of last season when Jose Reyes looked lethargic and worn-out during the Mets' collapse. The consensus conclusion was that 78 for 99 was as good as 47 for 60, but with a lot less wear-and-tear on the body.

When you consider SB%, how would you rank Tim Raines against Lou Brock and Rickey Henderson? In other words, is stealing 808 bases at a .847 rate better than stealing 938 bases at a .753 rate?